Trans athletes are under more scrutiny than ever. Some have found a safe space in gymnastics

PITTSBURGH — Raiden Hung can't imagine a life without gymnastics. And to be honest, he doesn't want to.

There's always been something about the sport that's called to him. Something about flipping. Something about the discipline it requires. Something about the mixture of joy and calm he feels whenever he steps onto a mat.

''It keeps me sane, I guess,'' the 21-year-old student at Northeastern University in Boston said. ''Gymnastics is the love of my life basically.''

The hours in the gym have long served as a constant for Hung. The one thing he can always depend on. The one place where he can truly feel like himself.

Still, Hung feared he would be forced to give up gymnastics when he realized in his late teens that he was non-binary. He had identified as female most of his life and competed in women's events growing up. He says he now identifies as trans-masculine.

Part of Hung's transition included beginning hormone replacement therapy, something he considered putting off over worries that it meant he would no longer be able to compete.

''It was sort of like, ‘Do I have to make a choice?''' Hung said. ''And that would have probably been awful for my mental stability, like having to choose between the two.''

The National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs gave Hung safe harbor. The stated mission of the steadily growing organization that includes more than 2,500 athletes and 160 clubs across the country is to provide a place for college and adult gymnasts to continue competing while ''pushing the boundaries of the sport.''

That includes, but is hardly limited to, being as gender-inclusive as possible.

During local NAIGC meets, for example, there are no gender categories. Athletes compete against every other athlete at their designated skill level, which can run from novice/developmental routines to ones that wouldn't look out of place at an NCAA Division I meet.

Gymnasts can also hop on whatever apparatus they want. Women on parallel bars. Men on the balance beam. Just about anything goes. At its annual national meet, the NAIGC even offers the ''decathlon," which allows athletes of all gender identities to compete against each other across all 10 disciplines — six in men's, four in women's — of artistic gymnastics.

''(We want) people to be able to continue doing gymnastics into adulthood in a way that feels comfortable and safe and supportive for them,'' said Ilana Shushanky, NAIGC's director of operations.

A challenging climate

The approach comes as transgender athletes find themselves the target of increasingly heated rhetoric.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February that gave federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration's view, which interprets ''sex'' as the gender someone was assigned at birth. A day later, the NCAA said it would limit competition in women's sports to athletes who were assigned female at birth.

The message to the transgender community at large was clear: You do not belong here. Several trans and/or non-binary members of the NAIGC, which is independently run and volunteer-led and does not rely on federal money to operate, felt it.

Calix Hill, a 26-year-old gymnast who identifies as trans-masculine, returned to the sport two years ago following a lengthy break, the fallout of what they described as an abusive environment in the gym where they trained as a child. Hill was going to law school in the South when they began transitioning and said it was not unusual for them to be met with homophobic slurs while walking across campus or being regularly misgendered or singled out by professors.

Multiple trans or non-binary athletes who spoke to The Associated Press said they pondered quitting following last fall's election, despondent over what at times feels like an increasingly hostile environment toward their community.

None did. One viewed stepping away as ceding power over a part of who they are to someone else. Another pointed to the social aspect of gymnastics and how vital the feeling of acceptance in their home gym was to maintaining proper mental and emotional health.

''Part of my identity is as an athlete and to see myself as strong and able to do hard things,'' said Wes Weske, who is non-binary and previously competed in the decathlon before recently graduating from medical school. ''I think (gymnastics) really helped my self-image and was just an important part of understanding myself."

A sense of normalcy

That sense of belonging was everywhere at the NAIGC's national competition in early April. For three days, more than 1,700 athletes, including a dozen who registered their gender as ''other," turned a convention center hall in downtown Pittsburgh into what could best be described as a celebration.

Not just of gymnastics. But of diversity. And inclusion.

There were no protests. No performative grandstanding. It all looked and felt and sounded like any other large-scale meet. Cheers from one corner following a stuck dismount. Roars from another corner encouraging a competitor to hop back up after a fall.

It felt normal. That's the NAIGC's point. Gymnastics is for everyone.

For Hung and the 11 "other" competitors allowed to choose whether to compete in the men's or women's divisions, nationals provided the opportunity to salute the judges and stand alongside their teammates while being seen for who they really are.

When Hung dismounted from his uneven bars routine, several members of Jurassic Gymnastics, the all-adult competitive team based in Boston that Hung joined, came over to offer a hug, pep talk or both.

The group included Eric Petersen, a 49-year-old married father of two teenagers who competed on the men's team at the Air Force Academy 30 years ago. He now dabbles in women's artistic gymnastics alongside Hung at Jurassic, one of the largest adults-only gymnastics club in the country.

Petersen has heard all the noise about transgender athletes. It does not jibe with the reality he experiences in the gym.

''Certain people want to convince people that this is a big issue and people are losing their (minds),'' he said. ''But it's not like that. Other groups can be uptight about that if they want. But in this group, it's about the love of the sport. If you love the sport, then do the sport and have fun, no matter who you are.''

Finding their way

Ten Harder got into gymnastics after being inspired by watching Gabby Douglas win gold at the 2012 Olympics. They spent their childhood competing as a woman but became increasingly uncomfortable at meets as they grew older.

''Everyone is, like, fitting into the binary gender roles of being super feminine or being very masculine," said Harder, 22, now a Ph. D. student at Boston University who identifies as non-binary/trans masculine. ''You're sort of, like, unsure of where your place is and how you can fit into it.''

Harder felt like they had to make their own path. So they did. They connected on TikTok with a non-binary gymnast from the Netherlands and started competing in a uniform that felt more natural, a practice leotard similar to a tank top and shorts. Over the last couple of years, they have run across other non-binary or queer athletes, easing their sense of loneliness.

''It doesn't have to just be me figuring this out on my own,'' they said. ''I can work together with all these other people and see how i can build my own space in this really feminine sport.''

While there are times Harder admits they still grapple with feeling self-conscious about their gender identity even around teammates who have become friends and allies, there is also something greater at play.

''I think it's important to remember that trans athletes are just people, too,'' he said. ''We deserve to be in the sports that we love. And we deserve to get a chance to compete and do everything just as other people do.''

Harder, who began taking testosterone recently, competed in the men's-plus division of women's artistic gymnastics at nationals at their given level. It just felt right. Hung, by comparison, competed in the women's-plus division at his given level. Also, because it just felt right.

One trans athlete told the AP they decided to enter the men's-plus division even though they have not started medically transitioning because they wanted to prove they could hold their own anyway.

They did not win. It hardly mattered. For most NAIGC athletes, the results are almost beside the point.

An evolving sport

Gymnastics is a difficult, thankless and often physically demanding pursuit. It's long been considered the domain of the very young, a niche sport whose popularity spikes every four years during the Olympics only to fade again into the background.

That stereotype is changing on multiple levels. Simone Biles, then 27, became the oldest women's Olympic all-around champion in 72 years in Paris last summer. Interest in women's college gymnastics is soaring. And the number of adults in the sport is spiking. Community membership in the NAIGC, for example, has doubled since 2015.

Many of those members are like Jennifer Castellano, a 30-something director of investment operations at a firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, who returned to the gym following a long layoff. The last few years have given her a deep appreciation for the community it builds.

When Castellano sees a transgender athlete competing, what races through her mind is not anger, but awe.

''At no point am I ever like, ‘Oh my gosh, like, he's taken testosterone, like that's not fair,' because it's incredible,'' said Castellano, who competes for Triumph Gymnastics in Cary, North Carolina. ''To go through that change and to be able to continue to feel at home and to feel welcomed is so important.''

Hung has finished ahead of cisgender women at local NAIGC meets since he began transitioning. Asked if he's ever received any pushback, he shakes his head and said, ''It's sort of like, ‘we're just doing gymnastics.'''

As Fay Malay, a non-binary teammate of Hung's at Jurassic, put it, ''there's so much more to being a human than the bits and parts (we) got.''

That doesn't keep Hung from occasionally wondering if competing against cisgender women while taking testosterone gives him an edge. An admittedly anxious person, his mind keeps coming back to two immutable facts.

He's non-binary trans masculine, something he lives with 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not just the handful of hours a year he's competing. And he's a gymnast. Hung feels he should be allowed to love both and be allowed to be both.

In what can feel like an increasingly fractured world, gymnastics gives him peace. He's found a home at Jurassic and within the NAIGC, one that allows him the freedom to compete as he is, not how others want to define him.

He hopes — as do several other trans athletes who spoke to the AP for this story — that the non-binary community within the NAIGC will one day be large enough to have a division of its own. Maybe down the road. Whether that happens or not, he knows he still has a place in gymnastics. And for now, that's enough.

''It feels like a sort of like, like a safe bubble or like what's stronger than a bubble?" said Hung, who finished in the middle of the pack in his division. ''I don't know. But it's like, it definitely feels like ... like a shield.''

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AP video journalist Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos contributed to this report.

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